Dumbed-down GCSEs are a 'scam' to improve league tables, claim critics

Example GCSE question

By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent

12:01AM BST 28 Aug 2005

Question: Why are GCSE examinations getting easier? Answer: Because pupils are being asked questions like the one below. Featured in a Leisure and Tourism GCSE paper, written by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance exam board and taken by thousands of 16-year-olds, the brainteaser secured the candidate one mark out of a possible 91. The next question, worth three marks, read: "Describe what customers need to do to receive a delivery service from an Indian take-away restaurant."

Critics yesterday denounced such soft questioning, saying it only added to growing concerns about the validity of GCSEs, particularly the increasingly popular "vocational" or "applied" courses.

The debate about the exam was heightened last week with the publication of the annual GCSE results, which demonstrated that thousands of teenagers are switching from "harder" academic subjects to the "applied" subjects, which are worth between two and four traditional GCSEs in school league tables. This year, entries in the Leisure and Tourism GCSE shot up by 3,740 to 17,290, possibly fuelled by the standard of questions.

Typical challenges in 90-minute paper included describing "your own Saturday leisure activities and the time you spend on them" (four marks) and "what is meant by a short-break holiday" (two marks).

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Another of the 14 applied GCSEs to show a surge in popularity was Health and Social Care, where entries rose from 18,368 to 24,631. In one question, candidates had to identify "two different family relationships".

Martin Stephen, the high master of St Paul's School, an independent school in London, dismissed the exams as a scam employed by underperforming schools to manipulate league tables.

"At a stroke, they solve many of the problems affecting our schools today," he said. "First, they require no teachers, and teachers are expensive and difficult to find. Second, as the papers appear to need no specialist knowledge, they could be marked by secretarial staff or, indeed, anyone walking by on the street. Third, they are an excellent test of the candidate's ability to read, as most of the answers are actually in the questions.

"To suggest that the grades are comparable to traditional maths, physics, history or classics exams would be a travesty of justice and deeply unfair to candidates sitting hugely more demanding papers."

Supporters argue, however, that the work-related courses are rigorous, in their way. A spokesman for AQA said applied GCSEs were designed for candidates across a range of abilities, and insisted that questions tended to become progressively harder through the paper.